


Father's Day

by Nyssa23



Category: Mystery Science Theater 3000
Genre: Families of Choice, Father's Day, Fatherhood, Gen, Parenthood, Robots, Whimsy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-17
Updated: 2010-08-17
Packaged: 2017-10-11 03:23:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/107805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nyssa23/pseuds/Nyssa23
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The bots give Joel a special gift.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Father's Day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [logicandchaos (comically_so)](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=logicandchaos+%28comically_so%29).
  * Inspired by ["Of Robots And Boxes"](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/1297) by logicandchaos (comically_so). 



Crow T. Robot pored over the piles of old magazines in one of the many unused rooms on board the Satellite Of Love. A few weeks ago, Joel had found the magazines and some books left over from when the SOL was intended to be a new international space station; sure, this meant that there were a lot of technical manuals in Chinese and Romanian, but there were some interesting books in English mixed in too. Joel had made up a little reading area with a lamp and a beanbag chair which had become one of Crow's new favorite places to pass time on a Sunday afternoon.

Crow looked at all the colorful pictures and wondered about life on Earth: here a group of children played some game on a sunny field, here a man and a woman held hands and looked into each other's eyes. At least these pictures were a welcome change from the frenetic images in all the movies the Mads made them watch, and helped Crow imagine what it would be like to live way down there on that big blue planet. He slid down from the beanbag chair and wandered off in search of Servo. For the idea he'd just had, Crow figured he'd need a little help from the small, sturdy 'bot.

In a former solarium decorated with a few vacuum flowers and about as airy as a room on a spaceship could possibly get, Joel hummed a cheery little tune which might have been "The Girl From Ipanema" as he worked on his newest Invention Exchange. Cambot hovered nearby, lending the occasional click and whir to the song and showing Joel the view from every angle of the Gizmonic device. "I don't know, Cambot," Joel sighed. "Do you think it needs more ball bearings? Maybe a pulley?" Cambot swung his lens slowly from side to side and instead glided over to a nearby pile of spare parts, displaying an image of a plastic wiffle-ball scoop.

Joel beamed. "That's it! Perfect. Thanks, little guy! Remind me to get you an extra RAM chip later." He hurried over to the pile of parts and picked up the scoop, turning it from side to side and squinting to imagine where it would best fit on the new invention. One thing about this place, there was no shortage of interesting building material. Joel supposed he could thank the Mads for that, after a fashion. After all, if Forrester and Erhardt had bothered to clear away all the forgotten equipment and furniture and various amusements that were supposed to entertain the inhabitants of the space station, there would have been nothing for him to make Invention Exchanges with, let alone his companions.

Of course, Joel mused, if only he hadn't used those particular special parts to make his robot friends, he might have had more control over the environment of the SOL. But it was sure good to have someone to talk to during the long hours. And, in his more fanciful moments, Joel imagined that this must be what it was like to be a parent: constantly discovering one's children's likes and dislikes, patiently waiting for each facet of each child's personality to unfold and show itself. He smiled to himself as he put the finishing touches on the invention. The robots would really think he'd gone space-silly if he ever said anything as ridiculous as that; after all, each of them was an independent, self-contained robotic life form with advanced artificial intelligence, personality sequencers and free will, much closer to being adults than children. Heck, Gypsy alone had to be at least a hundred times smarter than Joel himself, able to control all the higher functions of a ship this size and still have enough time and brainpower left over for scrapbooking, learning to knit, and watching old episodes of "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea."

Joel backed away from his project, stretched, and walked over to one of the windows in his workshop. He gazed out at the endless blanket of stars, thinking how ironic it was that the thrilling outer space adventure he'd dreamed of as a boy was really a lot more like being grounded forever. More than ever, he was suddenly grateful for the company of his 'bots, and turned to mention something like that to Cambot--but when he completed his turn, he was alone in the room. Joel shrugged. Cambot probably had something else to do, he reasoned, although he realized he didn't really know what Cambot did when left to his own devices. "Must remember to ask him that sometime," Joel muttered to himself. Then he forgot that last thought instantly when he heard Magic Voice's words.

"Joel, could you come up to the observation lounge? There's a...situation...that needs your attention."

"Whillikers!" Joel bounded out of the room and up the ladders that led to the observation lounge. "Magic Voice," he panted, "what's going on up there?"

"I'm sorry, Joel, I don't have any more information." She seemed oddly serene, which calmed Joel a little.

Finally, Joel reached the doorway to the observation lounge. He smacked the button on the doorframe with the palm of his hand and lurched through the portal, to see...all four of his robots clustered together, surrounded by posters made of pictures cut out from magazines: men holding children's hands, tossing baseballs, building model airplanes.

"You guys." Joel couldn't help but smile. "What have you been up to?"

Gypsy drew herself up and enunciated as clearly as she could while still maintaining her control over the ship's functions, "We, the robots of the Satellite of Love, want to wish you a Happy Father's Day, Joel!" The sentence complete, her eye-light flickered as if the effort had tired her. Joel patted the oversized purple head. "Thanks, girl," he whispered. "That means a lot to me."

"All right, all right, cut the mushy stuff." Crow nudged past Gypsy and held out a claw. "If you'd care to look at these artist's renderings, Mr. Robinson--" he said in as officious a voice as he could muster, and led Joel towards the posters.

The narrative was taken up by Tom Servo, hovering by one of the pictures. He appeared to be trying to hurry through his part of the spiel. "--you'll see that, even though you're not really our dad, we still love you and we're thankful to you for creating us." His bubble head spun. "Gee whiz, I'm blushing," he muttered in that deep voice that always so amused Joel, with just a touch of sarcasm to cover the genuine sentiment. Or at least that's what Joel chose to think.

Cambot nudged Joel over to the middle of the artworks and clicked and whirred at the other 'bots until they moved to join their creator. He hovered over them all, making sure to take in the whole scene so they could all enjoy the footage later on Still-Store. It was then that Joel noticed the full-length mirror Crow had pushed over to the edge of the artworks so that Cambot could be in the pictures too.

Joel's eyes shone. He missed his family back home like the dickens; he was tired of never feeling grass under his feet; some days he wished he'd never taken that job at the Gizmonic Institute. But right now, today, he felt like the luckiest guy in space.


End file.
